


Maybe Christmas Can't Be Bought in a Store

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Series: Home Alone AU [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Don't copy to another site, Eponine does her best, Fluff, Found Family, Gavroche POV, Gen, also ExR on the side because I can't help myself, also guillenormand gets an implied redemption arc, and that's always been more than enough for Gavroche, home alone au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 22:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: After being left at home by accident while the Amis go off on their vacation, Gavroche wakes up Christmas morning hoping for a miracle.The Home Alone AU that you didn't realize you wanted until you read this description.Warnings: reference to a home invader (pre-fic).





	Maybe Christmas Can't Be Bought in a Store

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to my brilliant beta reader [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait).

Gavroche wakes up to silence. He blinks blearily, watching snow fall outside the window as the events of the week come rushing back to him.

Éponine and everyone disappearing. Being at home by himself. His parents trying to break into their home and being subsequently arrested. Talking with Mr. Gillenormand in the church. Christmas.

Christmas!

He flips onto his stomach, fighting his way out of the comforter and scrambling to crawl out. He knows that the tooth fairy and vitamins and the concept of a functional representative government are all scams for the naïve, but if there’s anyone he should be able to believe in, it’s Santa. And he's done everything right: he cleaned up the house after his parents were arrested, he’s been eating healthy foods without Uncle Joly showing him dissections of unhealthy organs, and he even made sure to replace Uncle E’s picture of Robespierre. If anyone deserves their family back today, it’s him.

Gavroche quickly runs out the room, grateful to have already put on pajamas (okay, a t-shirt and Uncle Joly’s shortest pj bottoms) the night before, and races down the stairs and into the living room. He can already imagine them, practically hear their voices floating out from the room: Uncle Ferre on his Barcalounger in slippers and holding his everpresent mug of coffee; Uncle Courf lounging on the floor under the tree with a giant red bow on his head and a cheesy smile on his face; Aunt Chetta, Uncle Joly, and Uncle Bossuet all cuddled together on that weird half-couch they have with Uncle R laying over all of their laps in a horrible holiday sweater; Jehan hovering over the sofa trying to convince Uncle R to sing more Saturnalia songs with them; Uncle E speaking animatedly with Uncle Fee about their latest initiative—or perhaps his latest issue with Macron, Gavroche hasn’t been watching the news much without Uncle E there to make everyone suffer with him—Uncle Baz laying on the floor at eye-level with that model train set that he’s obsessed with; Aunt Cosette cooking up with pancakes in the adjacent kitchen while Uncle Marius fusses over hot chocolate; and Éponine.

Éponine will be standing in the middle of the room and turn around and hug him and yell at him for being so stupid and threaten never to let him play video games ever again and take away dessert for a year and he’ll never let go of her, never again, not in a million years.

He turns the corner to the living room and freezes, excited smile falling from his face.

Looks like Santa gets to join the list of adults in his life that have never done crap for him.

He sighs, chastising himself for letting his hopes get so high. He’s already resigning himself to scrambled eggs for breakfast again when he sees a shape out of the corner of his eye. His chest seizes. Could it be his parents got out of police custody that quickly and are back to finish the job they started the night prior? New burglars? A forgotten life-sized cardboard standee of Napoleon? 

Could Santa possibly not be a total fraud?

(it seems unlikely)

He swallows, not daring to breathe as he slowly turns to face the figure.

Right there in the foyer stands Éponine. She looks a little haggard like she did back when she was working three jobs to get them by, her clothes look like she’s slept in them (twice), and her hair has definitely seen better days (but not a hairbrush—he wonders if she’ll have to cut it again like that time with the gum). 

He slowly approaches her, wary. Optimism makes people act rashly, he doesn’t want to fall for some hoax any sort of _touristique_ would allow themselves to be enchanted by. But she looks real—and that smell, that has to be real, he hopes his brain wouldn’t conjure up anything so foul of its own volition. He sees her smile fall a little as he continues to regard her with suspicion, and he knows that look: guilt, disappointment. The look she wore every Christmas before they moved out when there wasn’t enough food or any money for presents.

He closes the distance, burying his face in her jacket ( _and_ Gods _does she smell_ ) and hoping she’ll do him a favor, just this once, and ignore the grateful sobs that shake his body.

“Oh Gav, you’re okay,” she chokes as she rubs his back. “Thank God you’re okay.”

He pulls back, sniffing and hoping his face isn’t too red. “Well of course I am. Was raised by the best, wasn’t I?” He rubs at his eyes and clears his throat. “And anyway, these are my streets, Paris is my city: nothing was gonna happen to me.” He makes a mental note to grab the paper before Uncle E can get to it and see the news of the arrest.

Uncle E.

“Where is everyone?” He’s been pointedly ignoring Éponine’s smeared eye makeup and red eyes, but now he looks at her. Gods, she looks awful.

“They uh. I took a more complicated route to get here. They’re all flying back, I don’t know when they’ll—”

They’re interrupted by the door opening next to them and the exact bustle of arguments and chatter that Gavroche had hoped to hear this morning when he ran into the room. 

“Gav buddy!!” shouts Uncle Baz, sweeping him up into a wide swinging hug.

Uncle R seems to have fought his way to Éponine by the time Gavroche is firmly on the ground again, pressing a kiss to either side of her speechless face as Enjolras continues to trail behind him, rambling away about whatever they evidently were arguing about beforehand. “Hey Bud, how you been holding up?” he says, pulling Gavroche into a welcome hug.

“Same-old, same-old.” Gavroche notices that it’s a one-armed hug, eyes following Uncle R’s other arm to see the hand firmly gripped in Uncle E’s. Uncle E quiets long enough to smile at Gavroche, squeezing his shoulder affectionately with his free hand once Uncle R lets go.

“How—how did you—” Éponine stutters.

“You remember that Christmas Eve flight you said would take entirely too long for your tastes?” grins Uncle R.

“Of course, we nearly didn’t make it,” calls Uncle Bossuet, wrapping Gavroche into a hug from behind.

“These idiots,” Aunt Chetta says pointedly in the tone of voice she reserves for talking about Uncle R and Uncle E, “couldn’t stop bickering for long enough to get through security.”

“To be fair, that wasn’t the issue,” adds Jehan, bestowing a kiss on Gavroche’s forehead that he doesn’t even grimace at before going upstairs.

“Boss, it’s my turn to cuddle him,” complains Aunt Chetta. Uncle Bossuet sighs, letting go and mussing Gavroche’s hair for good measure as Aunt Chetta kneels to hug him properly, smelling of cranberries and cocoa butter. He’s suddenly reminded of the night he snuck into their shared room, surrounding himself with pillows and a smear of cocoa butter to pretend he wasn’t alone. If anyone notices the flush in his cheeks when Aunt Chetta pulls away, they are too polite to say anything.

“Then what was the issue?” Éponine turns to Uncle R, face darkening with accusation. “What did you do?”

“Relax, it wasn’t entirely R, Enjolras gets at least partial credit for this one,” Uncle Fee says, ruffling Gavroche’s hair while Uncle Joly begins a rigorous examination, checking his skin for cuts and bruises and pressing a hand to his forehead.

“But it was 80% R,” mutters Uncle Joly.

“It was both of them that ended up in airport security for two hours,” Uncle Ferre sighs in a way that indicates that this probably isn’t the first time they’ve had this discussion, “so it was 100% both of their faults.”

Uncle Joly seems satisfied that Gavroche is still whole and in one piece and gives him a kiss on the cheek before joining his partners upstairs. Uncle Courf wastes no time sweeping him into a rib-crushingly tight hug.

“In my defense, maybe if he didn’t plan for us to have four hours to waste before our flight, I wouldn’t have felt the impulse to instigate a fight—”

“A fight about terrorism. In an airport. As a minority yourself.” Uncle Ferre pushes his glasses up to rub his eyes.

“Enjolras is the one who kept shouting about my having been ‘randomly selected.’”

Over Uncle Courf’s shoulder Gavroche can see Uncle E rolling his eyes and huffing. Gavroche taps out of the hug, and Uncle Courf gingerly puts him back on the ground, flourishing him with kisses all over his face and head. He can’t say he missed this, but he indulges Uncle Courf for once, knowing how worried everyone must have been. 

Uncle Ferre stands beside him, smiling as Uncle Courf goes upstairs, and for the second time today Gavroche initiates the hug, burying himself into the smell of cocoa butter, leather, and sandalwood, letting calm pass over him as Uncle Ferre sighs into the hug (despite that he’s too tall to hug Gavroche with much more than the lower half of his forearms). Éponine’s chastisement of Uncle E and Uncle R fades into the background for a moment, and when he pulls away it’s just him and Ép again. They stand in silence for a moment, smiling at one another with matching relief, and Gavroche pulls her into another hug.

“Did you call the cops?” she asks at last, not yet letting go of him.

He pulls away slightly to roll his eyes. “Did you?”

She sighs, smiling. “I feel a bit irresponsible encouraging this.” They finally step away from one another to continue their banter in comfort.

“You’re not exactly the one marching around with the ‘cops are pigs’ banners,” he points out with a grin. She gives him a light punch to the arm. “So. How was the trip?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m taking a shower.”

“You need one.”

“Don’t I know it,” she grimaces, moving to start up the steps. 

Gavroche is halfway to the kitchen when he hears his sister call his name. He pokes his head back around the corner to see Éponine squatting in front of a potted plant that Jehan claims improves the feng shui of the stairs’ harsh corners and looking at something in her hands with a great deal of concentration.

Gavroche had done his best to clean up following his parents’ departure—had he slipped up? The stairs were the site of the impromptu skateboard ramp/poison ivy exhibition, which had worked exactly as well as he had hoped and was probably the easiest scene to return to its original state, but had complacence made him sloppy? He tries to compose himself as he goes up to see what Éponine examines so closely.

“Any idea where this came from?” she asks, holding out a small pocket knife. Wooden handle, gold ends, hooked blade devastatingly sharp. He tries not to shudder, remembering the sorts of jobs his father used to take it on and its terrifying reappearance the night before as he had been chased through his home. “I thought we left it behind when we moved, but I just found it tucked behind the pot.”

“I must’ve grabbed it when we left,” he shrugs. “Prolly just did it to inconvenience him, I used to do that sorta thing a lot.”

“You still do that sort of thing a lot,” she responds flatly, and Gavroche feels a devilish and uneven grin spread across his face. Éponine gives him an evaluating look before flipping the blade back in and tucking it into her back pocket. “Knife’s a knife, it’s ours now.”

\---

With only three bathrooms in the house, it takes around an hour and a half for people to start trickling into the kitchen, and Gavroche calculates that his family’s jetlag and sleepless night should be kicking in soon enough. He’s already started up all three coffeemakers, has a batch of hot chocolate simmering on the backburner, and has today’s newspaper filed safely away in the paper-recycling bin in the garage. The table is half-filled before Uncle Baz looks up from his coffee and cereal, both nearly finished.

“I’m almost positive I finished the milk off before we left. Did someone else buy on the way here or…”

“These fruits and vegetables are all fresh, too,” Jehan remarks as they peer into the fridge.

“And I know for a fact that I only left exactly enough coffee for half of us,” adds Uncle R. Everyone fixes him with tired glares. “I wanted to see who the strongest six in the household were,” he shrugs. “I was gonna have us draw up elimination tables and everything, but then uh…other things came up.”

Everyone’s eyes fall on Gavroche. 

“There wasn’t any food. I was hungry.” 

“So you…went grocery shopping?” Uncle Baz asks incredulously.

“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean.” He crosses his arms.

“He even got no-pulp! R, is there a reason a 9 year-old is grocery-shopping better than you?” Jehan replaces the orange juice, shutting the door with their foot.

“Maybe he should take on grocery-shopping duties from now on,” Uncle R suggests.

“Don’t even think about it,” grumbles Uncle E as he groggily enters the kitchen. “You are not passing off your responsibilities as an adult onto a child.” 

“S’child labor,” Uncle Baz volunteers through a mouthful of cereal.

“Exactly,” Uncle E concludes with a sip. “Now make us pancakes.”

Uncle R throws his hands up but concedes with a gentle smile, brushing Uncle E’s shoulder as he passes him.

“Wait, where’re Aunt Cosette and Uncle Marius?” Gavroche asks, taking inventory from earlier in the morning. It was busy, sure, but he has no recollection of Cosette’s tinkling laugh or Marius’s cinnamon-scented hug.

Uncle Ferre looks up from his phone. “Something came up with his family. Nothing bad.”

“What was it?”

Uncle Courf makes a face. “His bigoted, homophobic grandfather came out of the woodwork and suddenly wanted to be involved in his life. Marius says it sounds like he’s trying to trying to turn over a new leaf, but I don’t trust him.”

Gavroche doesn’t say anything, but Mr. Gillenormand and his fear of his grandson’s rejection and his daughter in-law’s disapproval spring to mind. He wonders if the man took his advice and, if so, how it’s working out.

“Sometimes it’s worth giving people a second chance to prove themselves,” comments Uncle Ferre pointedly, directing a glance between Uncle E and Uncle R that goes unnoticed by both of them as Uncle E watches Uncle R stir the pancake batter with a soft smile. Gross.

“Speaking of moving forward in relationships,” announces Éponine’s voice as she enters the room, rubbing her hair dry with a towel. Gavroche smothers the urge to run up to her and sit on her lap like he did when they were younger. “When did these two finally get their shhh—act. Their acts together?”

Gavroche rolls his eyes at his sister’s attempt to censor herself. As if he didn’t grow up running with the same crowd as she did. “Turns out that when you’re stuck together in airport security for two hours, you have a lot of time to air out feelings,” teases Uncle Baz.

“Oh, they’ve had their feelings ‘aired out’ for longer than that,” Gavroche comments dismissively, taking a sip of his hot cocoa. There’s silence in the kitchen as all eyes are once more on him before gradually shifting to the suspiciously silent pair at the kitchen counter. Uncle E is still looking at Gavroche with a baffled if not slightly pinkened expression, but Uncle R has started cackling as he spoons batter into a hot pan.

“How do ya figure?” probes Uncle Baz.

“More arguing over nothing than usual, their mugs are always in the sink together, Uncle E didn’t ask everyone in the house what to get Uncle R for Christmas this year, Uncle R’s been buying more canvases again instead of just painting over the ones he already painted, and I’ve run into both of them sneaking between floors before five in the morning,” he ticks off. Uncle Fee looks like he has questions about Gavroche’s nightly activities, so he quickly adds, “Also, sock drawer? Really, Uncle E?” 

Uncle E turns beet-red before racing out of the room, nearly running into Uncle Bossuet as Uncle R’s boisterous laughter fills the kitchen.

Uncle Joly, Uncle Bossuet, and Aunt Chetta all file into the kitchen filled with excited energy, already planning their impromptu Christmas dinner as the smell of fresh pancakes begins to fill the kitchen. Éponine, Uncle Bossuet, and Jehan volunteer to help set the table, refusing to let Gavroche lift a finger and pushing him into a seat. 

Éponine pulls a chair up beside him when every place is set and Uncle R has three plates stacked high with pancakes spread across the tabletop. 

“Hey Gav,” she whispers, leaning in to grab his hand in the midst of the contained chaos. “Merry Christmas.”

He squeezes her hand back, looking around the table at his patchwork family and feeling warmth glowing bright inside him. 

“Merry Christmas, Ép.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, everyone!
> 
> Home Alone does a good job of giving viable reasons for everything to have gone wrong, but it always struck me as strange that almost no one interacts with Kevin when they return home.
> 
> Inspired by [this post](https://ambigious-ambition.tumblr.com/post/169521174062/just-a-thought-home-alone-but-with-gavroche).
> 
> C O M M E N T B E L O W PLS. (or reach out to me at to me at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com)).


End file.
